Last month, All Azimuth published an article by Bean and Comor titled "Data Driven Public Diplomacy: A Critical and Reflexive Assessment." As the scholars note, the rise of digital technologies, and the utilization of digital platforms in public diplomacy, has seen a greater emphasis on measuring public diplomacy activities and their ability to influence foreign populations. From big data sets to social media analytics, public diplomacy and its evaluation is indeed data-driven.

Several times a week the State Department sends a greeting to a foreign country on the occasion of its national day. By tradition, the salutations have been written by low-level diplomats and routinely approved by their superiors. But not anymore. Now the messages go through Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson’s office, where his top assistants insist on vetting them, and where they often sit for weeks before coming back with extensive editing changes, according to several department officials.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is defending his efforts to redesign the State Department, but the process has left many of its 36,000 employees in Washington and around the world feeling anxious about their mission. Tillerson was welcomed warmly to the State Department six months ago. But some current and former ambassadors and foreign policy experts say they are worried about a number of indications that the Trump administration plans to lower the priority of promoting democracy and human rights in U.S. foreign policy.

By insisting on a pro-Kremlin agenda, and trying in vain to halt all inquiries into the Russian meddling in the election that brought him to power, Trump undermines his own political position, inviting further investigation of his financial dealings and opening the possibility of charges of obstruction of justice. Not a good time for policy, or those trying to communicate it.

Why does this history matter? Because we are living at a similarly fraught moment, in a time when international alliances are in flux. America’s reputation abroad has plunged in many countries. Conspiracy theories have never been easier to create and pass on, both abroad and at home. [...] Yet at the moment, there is no systematic U.S. or Western response to Russian, Chinese or Islamic State disinformation.

Why does this history matter? Because we are living at a similarly fraught moment, in a time when international alliances are in flux. America’s reputation abroad has plunged in many countries. Conspiracy theories have never been easier to create and pass on, both abroad and at home. [...] Yet at the moment, there is no systematic U.S. or Western response to Russian, Chinese or Islamic State disinformation.